


recognize and be recognized

by icoulddothisallday



Series: recognize and be recognized, help and be helped; such is family life [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Family Feels, Past Child Abuse, parenting, past emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 00:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19240303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday
Summary: Steve loves Grace, but he doesn’t get her the way that he gets Charlie. Charlie and he are cut from the same cloth.





	recognize and be recognized

The door opens suddenly and Steve looks up from his laptop. They’re in a bit of a lull between cases and he’s trying to get caught up on some paperwork he’s maybe been ignoring for a while. Charlie comes stomping in, kicking his shoes off and slamming his backpack down before darting up the stairs. His bedroom door closes with a resounding bang. 

Steve raises an eyebrow at Danny as he comes through the door. Charlie is generally a happy, good natured kid. He struggles in school, so frustration when he gets home isn’t unusual, but he always comes and gives Steve a hug when he gets in. 

Danny looks tired and upset as he comes through the door. He toes off his shoes and collapses on to the sofa next to Steve. Closing his laptop, Steve sets it aside and asks, “What happened?”

“He got another sleepover invite,” Danny explains. 

_ Ah,  _ Steve thinks, understanding. 

Charlie has chronic issues with bedwetting. It’s not every night, but it’s most nights. At home he wears pull ups and mostly deals with it on his own. It’s all very matter of fact in their house, but Steve knows he would never feel comfortable wearing them with a friend around. 

Now that he’s into second grade, there are more and more sleepover invitations and requests happening with each passing week. Charlie gets pretty upset every time it comes up. 

“He was calling himself names all the way home.  _ Baby  _ and  _ stupid  _ and shit like that. God, Steve. I hate hearing him say stuff like that about himself. He’s just a kid. Kids wet the bed, that’s just life. Why do people have to shame them. So what if he’s a little older than average? There’s nothing  _ wrong  _ with him.” Steve aches a little bit, hearing it, both in pain for Charlie and for the child he was, who didn’t even have parents who supported him. His parents had called him those names and worse ( _ piss pants  _ on more than one occasion from his Dad,  _ retard  _ from Doris). 

“I should go talk to him,” Danny says, but makes no move to get up. 

They’ve both worked hard to make sure that Charlie’s self-esteem hasn’t suffered because of this issue, but it’s getting harder as he gets older. There’s one thing they haven’t tried yet, though. 

“No, let me,” Steve says softly, getting up. “I think I can probably understand better.”

Danny looks up, lifting a brow. He clearly understands what Steve is trying to say — that he’ll be honest with Charlie about his own childhood issues with bedwetting. It’s not something Steve ever talks about with anyone — it had been such a deep and chronic shame when he was a kid, and it’s hard for him to overcome that. But for Charlie he’ll do it. 

Danny catches his hand, squeezes. “Thank you, babe.”

Steve leans down, kisses him lightly and then, because he can, much more thoroughly, before heading upstairs. He stops outside Charlie’s door and takes a deep breath before knocking. 

He can just hear Charlie’s muttered, “Come in.”

Opening the door slowly, Steve lets himself in. Charlie’s room is perpetually a bit of a disaster, even though he has to pick it up every night before bed. It’s more of a disaster than usual, at the moment — he’s shoved all his blankets and stuffed animals onto the floor. The package of pull ups that usually stays stowed in his drawer has been shoved into his trash can. His toy bin has been turned over — probably kicked, if Steve had to guess. 

Charlie himself is face planted into his pillows on his bed. Steve sits down on the edge of the bed beside him and gently puts a hand on Charlie’s back, rubbing slightly. 

“Hey, buddy. Danno told me what happened.”

Charlie’s breath hitches ominously. “I dunno why I havta be this way. I’m so stupid, just a big  _ baby.” _

“Hey, no,” Steve interjects, voice firm. “No calling yourself names, pal. You’re not a baby and you’re definitely not stupid.”

“Then why do I pee my bed?” Charlie asks dejectedly. “Nobody else does.”

“That’s not true.” It shouldn’t be this hard, to talk about this. It’s been thirty odd years. He knows his parents were wrong. But somehow, this shame still dwells close to his bones. “I wet the bed ‘til I was older than you.” 

Charlie’s head pops up immediately, eyes going wide. “Really?” he gasps. 

Steve nods. “Yup.”

“But you’re so strong and brave and —” Charlie breaks off, shaking his head. 

“That’s got nothing to do with whether or not someone wets the bed,” Steve assures, saddened to think that Charlie thinks those things might be correlated — that even subconsciously he might be thinking of himself as weak and cowardly. He’s anything but. “Just the way some bodies work. And you’re only a kid, Charlie. I know that seven feels very big some days, but you’re still only little. You’ve got a lot of growing yet to do. Your body will figure this out.”

Charlie shrugs, not looking reassured. Steve scoops him up and deposits him in his lap. 

“I know it’s embarrassing,” Steve says softly. “And I know you wish it would just  _ stop _ . But I promise you, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

Hiding his face in Steve’s chest, Charlie just shrugs. Steve sighs a little, not sure what else to say. 

“Did you have to wear diapers?” Charlie whispers. 

“They didn’t really make things like that for older kids when I was your age,” Steve says, though there’d been plenty of times Doris had threatened to put Steve in cloth diapers. “So I had to wash the sheets every morning, instead.” 

Charlie gapes up at him, embarrassment evidently forgotten for a moment. “Your mommy and daddy didn’t help you?”

“No, bud,” Steve says honestly. “My parents weren’t very nice about it. They called me a lot of mean names and made me feel pretty bad about myself.”

Charlie’s face folds into an adorable protective frown. “That’s not nice! Why would they do that?”

“They weren’t very nice people.” It’s a vast oversimplification of the issue, but Charlie is seven, and that’s all he really needs to know. 

“Well  _ you’re  _ nice,” Charlie grumbles, crossing his arms and pouting. 

Steve grins and sweeps down to kiss him on the nose, making him giggle. “Thanks, pal.”

Snuggling close, Charlie relaxes into him and they sit quietly for a minute. Of course, neither of them are very good at sitting still, so it doesn’t last long, and soon Charlie is fidgeting and asking, “Uncle Steve? When did you  _ stop _ ?”

Steve licks his lips nervously. This is not something he’s ever said out loud. To anyone. Ever. But he knows it’s important to be honest, and he refuses to lie to Charlie. And yeah, there’s a good chance Charlie will let these details slip to Danny and Grace, hell, even to Rachel and Stan. Charlie’s not exactly great at impulse control and keeping secrets. But Steve’s just going to have to accept that. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. None of those people will judge him for this.  And anyway, it was a long time ago. 

“I was about ten,” he says, though that’s only when it stopped being a regular occurrence. It was a couple more years before he could really mark the  _ last  _ time it happened. 

Charlie bites his lip and lets out a soft, “Oh.”

“I don’t know when it will stop for you,” Steve tells him. “There’s no predicting that. But no matter how old you are, there’s nothing wrong with you and there’s no reason to feel bad about yourself. You can’t help it. And Danno and I will never, ever be mad at you. Not if you’re ten, or fifteen, or twenty-five, or a hundred, okay?”

“What if I’m a hundred and one?” Charlie asks with a goofy smile. 

“Even then.”

“What if I’m a hundred and  _ two _ ?” Charlie asks and Steve bops him on the nose.

“Uncle Steve, did you ever go on sleepovers?”

“No,” Steve says honestly. “But like I told you, I didn’t have anything to wear, so there was no way to keep it private. I think if you wanted to have a sleepover, you could do that. Danno and I can help you figure out how to keep your pull ups private.”

Charlie shrugs, moody again. 

“We could have one of your friends come over here,” Steve suggests gently. 

“I dunno,” Charlie mumbles. Steve doesn’t press. 

“Did anyone ever find out?” Charlie asks and Steve winces before he can stop himself. He was hoping Charlie wouldn’t ask that. 

“Yes,” Steve tells him. He hasn’t lied so far, he’s not about to start now. “My mom told one of my classmates,” Steve won’t call him his friend, because he’d very much not acted like a friend and the last thing Steve wants to do is make Charlie feel like he can’t trust his own friends. “And he told everyone at school.”

Charlie’s eyes go wide and his cheeks pink with the imagined embarrassment. “Were they mean?”

Steve nods. “Yes,” he says gently. “But you know that if anyone was ever mean to you at school, for any reason, Danno and I would talk to your teachers and do everything we could do to stop them.”

“I know,” Charlie mumbles, turning to hide his face in Steve’s chest. Steve grips him tight, closing his eyes and breathing in his scent. He’s not sure how he got so damn lucky, to get Charlie and Grace in his life. Charlie wiggles in his lap and Steve bounces his knees, making him giggle. They never have to sit still with each other. 

Steve loves Grace, but he doesn’t get her the way that he gets Charlie. Charlie and he are cut from the same cloth. 

“You wanna go for a swim before we do your homework, kiddo?”

Charlie sighs at the prospect of homework, but nods, sitting up a little straighter. 

“Do you have any other questions before we go?” Steve asks carefully. 

Chewing on his lip, Charlie considers. “Not right now,” he says. “But can I ask again later?”

“Sure thing,” Steve agrees. “Whenever you need, bud.”

“Thanks, Uncle Steve.” Charlie hugs him tight around the middle and then hops off his lap. “I bet I can beat you to the water!” he hollers, headed for his dresser. 

“No way!” Steve protests, but he already knows he’ll let him win. 

_ Fin.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Father's Day!


End file.
